My dog and her quirky breakfast habits

Readers, I need your help. Over the past few weeks, my dog has developed a peculiar morning routine.

Me: “Good morning Zenith! Good puppy!”

Zenith and her breakfast

Z: Wags tail and looks expectantly at her food dish.

Me: Takes the dish, fills it with the same food she’s been eating for over two years, drizzles some olive oil on top, and puts it down.

Z: Stares at me.

Me: Go on, eat your breakfast.

Z: Stares at me.

Me: It’s okay Z. Eat your breakfast.

Z: Stares and me and starts trembling and wagging her tail.

Me: Attempts any and all of the following – leaving the room, avoiding eye contact, reshaking the drizzled olive oil, coaxing her piece by piece (which she will eat).

Z: Growls when if I touch the dish.

Me: Displays general exasperation.

Z: Heads over the her cart and whines until I let her in.

I don’t get it! I’ll come home at lunch, and she still won’t have touched it. But by that point, she’s hungry enough, I guess, and eats it then.

What are your thoughts? Is she waiting for explicit permission? Am I confusing her by trying to empower her to eat her own breakfast? Is she making inadvertent eye contact with the baby a few feet away? I’ve had dogs my whole life and I’ve never come across an issue like this. How do I send her the clear message that it’s okay to eat?

Is it a new bag of food? Has she had any stomach issues? It is possible that the food is a bad batch and she is too smart for it… until she’s hungry enough. Just because you’ve been on the same food for years doesn’t mean that the current batch hasn’t been contaminated.

She may be smelling something in the food or olive oil that you can’t. I would buy a fresh bag and a new bottle. If she’s still reluctant to eat I would take her to her vet for a complete health check.

Growling? That is not good; it is a warning to you that thing need to change. I would do the following: make her dining location more private; perhaps a crate or distant corner of the kitchen (away from the baby/ a place she can feel safe with her food). Do not make a big deal out of eating. Put it down and if she hasn’t eaten it by the time you leave for work…then it gets taken away. This will take some time and she’ll go hungry a couple of times; but she’ll catch on. Remember she was “the baby” before the human baby came along and now is a time of adjustment in returning to a regular schedule. These things will help to take steps to remove her stress related to eating. Don’t show your frustration either. Just time to eat (or not). If there was no growling; I would wonder if the issue didn’t stem from the food. Dog food company’s often change the formulas and ingredients due to expenses and availability.

Are you feeding her before you leave for work? And I don’t even mean immediately.

My dog has associated breakfast with “mom leaves for work” so he doesn’t eat as if him not eating means I don’t leave. Then when I come home, he digs right in. Thought process might be “mom came home ok, still loves me, ok to eat now!”

He won’t even eat breakfast on the weekends until I’ve been sitting for a while and taken him for a couple of walks or potty breaks.

Its ok to change her meal routine to maybe just a hearty treat in the morning (Dentastix work great) for breakfast, then a full meal at night for dinner when she knows you’re home for the night and not going anywhere.

Her growling when you touch the dish is resource guarding. When she does that you need to give her a firm “No”, stand over her and get between her and the dish, then take the dish away. She needs to know that the dish is yours, the food is yours, and its your decision to feed her. Give her the food back when she’s sitting, and try again. Do it a few times til she gets the point.

I went through this with my dog. I can now stick my face in his food dish while he eats and he just wags his tail as if he’s excited to share his meal with me. We’re still working on it with the cats, though to be honest I use it to my advantage that he guards his food from the cats. If he’s being stubborn about eating, I bring a cat over to “eat” his food and he comes running to eat.

That last part is so funny. We have actually used her toys to get her to eat. “Oh look, Stuffed Pig is gonna eat your food!” That gets her to do it. I just feel there must be a better way! LOL

Her routine has been a bit crazy since the baby was born. I stayed home for 10 weeks, then went to work part-time. Now I’m back full-time, but there are caretakers in the house every other day, when the baby isn’t in daycare. I don’t think the poor dog knows what’s going on, but I’m hoping she’ll settle into it.

Everyday doesn’t have to be the same, but there has to be consistency between the days. For example, every Sunday you do the same thing: wake up, take care of baby, feed Zenith, make your own breakfast, walk Zenith, take a shower, etc. Every Monday you wake up, take care of baby, feed Zenith, take shower, make breakfast, send baby to daycare, go to work. Every Tuesday, wake up, take care of baby, welcome caretaker into house, feed Zenith, get ready for work, leave. And so on.

I’m sure that’s not your routine, but you need to set one so Zenith can figure out what day of the week it is and knows what to expect.

When my fiance and I were in our old jobs our routines were always the same so Yorrick knew what day of the week it was. On Sundays he ALWAYS waited to lick our plates before he ate his breakfast because we ALWAYS made a big breakfast on Sunday. Yorrick knew the routine was always mommy wakes up first, takes a shower, gets dressed, makes coffee, takes me out, leaves for work, then daddy gets up, gets ready for work, then leaves EVERY weekday. Every Saturday Yorrick knew daddy wakes up first, sits at computer until mommy wakes up, mommy takes me out, then breakfast comes.

If you can work out a routine between yourself, your husband, and your caretaker that Zenith can get used to, I bet you’ll see a huge change! She’ll know what to expect based on your order of activities.

Growing up, we had 2 border collies and a lab. The lab was an eating machine, who would start inhaling his food as we set his dish down. The border collies were air-dogs though, meaning they seemed to subsist mainly on air. One of them, in particular, Star, was REALLY finicky. She was never underweight, had great energy, good coat…but she just would not eat her food. Until no one was looking/she was starving. We eventually started doing this scary clawing motion at her and saying “I’m gonna get it, I’m gonna take it” and she’d snarl, growl, and go hover over her food and eventually choke it down. This wouldn’t happen every meal, but usually after about 2 skipped meals…we had to psychologically screw with her to get her to eat! No matter where we were- car, yard, living room, by her bowl, on the boat- it got to a point where we would just make the motion or start the sentence “I’m gonna…” and Star would curl her lip and look around for her food to protect. ALSO though, she was NEVER food aggressive to us. Sometimes she’d snip at the cats if they came to inspect her full bowl, that she was not interested in eating. Weird dog- more human than dog. She kept this up until she died last fall of old age. She was a hysterical dog, and died like I said, of old age, not starvation!

Now, MY dog, a less than year old golden retriever, was a food hound…until about 2 months ago. She would do the whole dancing between my legs routine and trembling with anticipation for that 2C of dry dog food. Then suddenly, she couldn’t bear the thought of eating. She was channeling her Great Aunt Star, I think. I started giving her salmon oil (sold in pet supply stores) on her food, and she resumed her normal eating. Then she stopped again. So I would literally pick up the bowl and talk about how yummy it was, then put a TBS of water on it, stir it…and that’s now how my Addie eats her breakfast and dinner. I swear, these dogs! Maybe it’s age, maybe it’s self monitoring caloric intake (wish I could do that), maybe it’s to keep my life interesting.

My dalmatian mix does this from time to time. She will only really eat the whole bowl once we have done a routine of “sit” “down” “High fives” “stay” and then “OKAY!” she seems to like to “work” for her food!

Mom smells different and is growing. Oh no! Small human has appeared. Smells funny. Mom and Dad spend a lot of time with small human. Yay! Small human and mom are home all day with me! I love this! Lots of Z-love! Inside! Outside! Mom time! I’m her special buddy.
Uh-oh, moms gone. She’s taking care of small human in the morning and leaving me. Strangers are infiltrating my home! This is confusing – they seem to think they belong here. Yay! Mom’s home from wherever she goes all day! Boo – small human is getting all the attention. Mom! Pay some attention to me! I’m you special Z-buddy! Hang out mom…don’t you wanna see me eeeaaaattt? You do? Ok, maybe I’ll eat..whoops! Fooled you there. Great seeing mom!

OK – I am exaggerating (a tiny bit) but I think the new addition and changes in routine have disrupted her and left her confused and wanting attention. I agree with Amy a- above – but would go further and offer the following:
– Routine – absolutely essential
– one-on-one time with Z; Walks (the best way) even brief will build that bond and provide the mental stimulation it looks like he is craving, along with time just with you
– A set amount of time to eat — like suggested above. HE eats- great. He doesn’t – there’s a meal later in the day. No big whoop.
– Make sure that the people coming in during the day for the baby are paying sufficient attention to the dog as well – if there is a reason he is dreading their arrival, then he could be holding out on the eating so you don’t leave.
Good luck! Let us know how you make out!

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